NATO

As the U.S. and Turkey begin clearing Islamic State fighters from Syria’s northwestern border, their ambitious mission raises a new set of troubling questions, chief among them: Who will provide the military muscle to oust the extremists and protect civilians sheltering in the new buffer zone? The fracturing of Syria’s opposition suggests that the border region could fall quickly under the sway of Syrian rebels linked to Al Qaeda, insurgents nominally opposed to Islamic State but who share much of the group’s radical ideology. At the same time, Turkey’s determination to defang forces from its own opposition by excluding them from the new border zone could...

Related "NATO" Articles

NATO declared its "strong solidarity" with Turkey on Tuesday as ambassadors gathered for a rare emergency meeting about the threat faced by a member.
Turkey requested the extraordinary meeting to gauge the threat the Islamic State extremist...

The United States and Turkey are finalizing plans for a military campaign to push the Islamic State group out of a strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish border, a move that would further embroil Turkey in Syria's civil war and set up a potential...

A suicide car bombing near a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan that once hosted CIA employees killed dozens of civilians Sunday, local officials said, the latest insurgent attack after foreign forces ended their combat mission there.
Local media,...

The U.S. will spread about 250 tanks, armored vehicles and other military equipment across six former Soviet bloc nations to help reassure NATO allies facing threats from Russia and terrorist groups, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Tuesday.
...

The U.S. committed Monday to contribute weapons, aircraft and forces, including commandos, as needed for NATO's new rapid reaction force, to help Europe defend against potential Russian aggression from the east and the Islamic State and other violent...

They call it the "mini-Pentagon" - a white marble building in the heart of Afghanistan's capital built with U.S. funds to serve as the headquarters of a modern military more than a decade in the making.
But the newly constructed building is a...

After more than a year of war in Ukraine, Western European citizens are extremely wary of using military force to defend NATO allies from Russia, according to a wide-ranging opinion poll released Wednesday. The findings highlight fears among Russia's NATO...

An Afghan soldier shot and killed a U.S. soldier and wounded several others Wednesday before being shot dead, the first so-called "insider attack" to target NATO troops since they ended their combat mission at the start of the year.
The...

NATO aircraft scream across eastern European skies and American armored vehicles rumble near the border with Russia on a mission to reassure citizens that they're safe from Russian aggression.
But these days, ordinary people aren't taking any chances.
...

Carrying a peace plan that reportedly incorporates proposals from Russia, the leaders of Germany and France met Thursday with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a hastily arranged mission to bring an end to the accelerated fighting in the east of the...

In a new push for peace, the leaders of France and Germany headed Thursday to Kiev with a proposal to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine. The surprise move appeared aimed at heading off U.S. considerations of giving Ukraine lethal weapons, something...

Russia identified NATO as the nation's No. 1 military threat and raised the possibility of a broader use of precision conventional weapons to deter foreign aggression under a new military doctrine signed by President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
NATO flatly...

Talk about poking the bear with a sharp stick. Ukraine's parliament overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to rile Russian President Vladimir Putin by moving to join NATO. If that happens, another of Russia's neighbors would come under the protective umbrella of...

Turkey said on Monday it would allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to reinforce fellow Kurds in the Syrian town of Kobani, while the United States air-dropped arms for the first time to help the defenders resist an Islamic State assault.U.S. Secretary of State...

Looking back over the past quarter-century, it isn't easy to name a Western policy that can truly be described as a success. The impact of Western development aid is debatable. Western interventions in the Middle East have been disastrous.
But one...

Two days of heavy air strikes by U.S. warplanes have slowed an advance by Islamic State militants against Kurdish forces defending the Syrian border town of Kobani. Turkish and U.S. officials said last week that Islamic State was on the verge of taking...

American-led forces have sharply intensified air strikes in the past two days against Islamic State fighters threatening Kurds on Syria's Turkish border after the jihadists' advance began to destabilize Turkey. The coalition had conducted 21 attacks on...

BELGRADE -- The politically-sensitive Euro 2016 qualifier between Serbia and Albania was abandoned on Tuesday following a brawl between players from both sides after a flag stunt.
The Group I game, with no away fans permitted, was interrupted when a flag...

Kurdish defenders held off Islamic State militants in Syria's border town of Kobani on Sunday, but the fighters struck with deadly bombings in Iraq, killing dozens of Kurds in the north and assassinating a provincial police commander in the west.
The top...

Islamic State fighters seized more than a third of the Syrian border town of Kobani, a monitoring group said on Thursday, as U.S.-led air strikes failed to halt their advance and Turkish forces looked on without intervening.
With Washington ruling out...